IMPACT ON THE POPULAR CULTURE

Impact on popular culture

The Lord of the Rings has had a profound and wide-ranging impact on popular culture, from its publication in the 1950s, but especially throughout the 1960s and 1970s, where young people embraced it as a countercultural saga[58[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_ring#cite_note-57|]]] - "Frodo Lives!" and "Gandalf for President" were two phrases popular among American Tolkien fans during this time.[59[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_ring#cite_note-58|]]]
Parodies like the Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings, the VeggieTales episode Lord of the Beans, the South Park episode The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers, and the Internet meme The Very Secret Diaries[60[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_ring#cite_note-Telegraph-59|]]][61[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_ring#cite_note-TheAge-60|]]] are testimony to the work's continual presence in popular culture.
In 1969 Tolkien sold the merchandising rights to The Lord of The Rings (and The Hobbit) to United Artists under an agreement stipulating a lump sum payment of £10,000[62[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_ring#cite_note-61|]]] plus a 7.5% royalty after costs, payable to Allen & Unwin and the author.[63[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_ring#cite_note-62|]]] In 1976 (three years after the author's death) United Artists sold the rights to Saul Zaentz Company, who trade as Tolkien Enterprises. Since then all "authorised" merchandise has been signed-off by Tolkien Enterprises, although the intellectual property rights of the specific likenesses of characters and other imagery from various adaptations is generally held by the adaptors.[64[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_ring#cite_note-63|]]] Outside any commercial exploitation from adaptations, from the late 1960s onwards there has been an increasing variety of original licensed merchandise, from posters and calendars created by illustrators such as Pauline Baynes and the Brothers Hildebrandt, to figurines and miniatures to computer, video, tabletop and role-playing games. Recent examples include the Spiel des Jahres award winning (for best use of literature in a game) board game The Lord of the Rings by Reiner Knizia and the Golden Joystick award winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar by Turbine, Inc..